


playing “would you rather”; when it comes to fire

by nosecoffee



Category: The Goldfinch (2019), The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt
Genre: Angst, Canon Divergent, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Genderswap, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Internalised Homophobia, Jealousy, Physical hurt/comfort, Recreational Drug Use, Running Away, Some Deeply Uncomfortable Conversations, Underage Drinking, Vegas Era, domestic abuse, this sounds darker than it is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-10
Updated: 2020-01-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:13:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22193860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nosecoffee/pseuds/nosecoffee
Summary: (you always say that you’d prefer to drown)*I’d kill for you,she doesn’t say, because that seems a step too far, but it’s what she wants to say. It’s what she means.For a second, Boris just stares at her with an unreadable expression on her face. They’ve never been like this, except besides when Theo told her that it was her fault that her mother had died.Then Boris takes a last drag of the smouldering cigarette and grins, kissing Theo’s cheek. “Soserious,Potter.”
Relationships: Theodore Decker & Boris Pavlikovsky, Theodore Decker/Boris Pavlikovsky
Comments: 26
Kudos: 111





	playing “would you rather”; when it comes to fire

**Author's Note:**

> Title from “Would You Rather?” by Phoebe Bridgers because it gives me big Boris/Theo feels
> 
> This is based on a post on Tumblr I say that talked about Boris’ love for Theo being more “I’d die for you” vs Theo’s love for Boris being more “I’d kill for you”

_you were still in the ambulance_

_when the cops suggested you’re the one_

_who tried to burn it down_

  
  
  


Theo thinks if Boris was literally anybody else she’d be dead by now. There’s just so much bullshit she’s gone through, so much shit she’s gotten herself into for Theo’s sake, and she’s just so… _something._ Boris is simply something more powerful and resilient than Theo can fathom.

At this point, Theo’s stopped suggesting they hang out at Boris’. She’s been there too often when Boris’ father has come home unexpectedly, drunk or just in a bad mood. Too often Popchyk has been there as well, only fuelling Boris’ panic at getting Theo out of sight further. Her father had thanked Theo for taking care of his daughter, and hugged her too, as if the last time she’d seen him he hadn’t beat the shit out of Boris right in front of her eyes.

The thing is that sometimes she can’t get out of the house in time before Boris’ father comes in. So, sometimes Theo huddles in the closet, holding Popchyk close to her chest, and tries not to listen for the spitted Russian her father spouts, the thwack of his cane against Boris’ skin, Boris’ shrieked protests, her bitten off cries. Once, she’d been shoved under the bed - they were so high they didn’t hear him coming up the stairs - and when Boris hit the floor, she’d met Theo’s eyes. She closed them and pressed the wrist of her sweater to her bloody mouth as she muffled a scream, her body jolting as he kicked her.

When he’d left, Theo had crawled out from under the bed like a soldier in a bloody trench, and gingerly hugged Boris to her chest, unsure of where she was hurt. “I’ll kill him,” she promised, determined to not let Boris see her tears. “I swear to god, I’ll kill that bastard for you.”

“No, Potter,” Boris whispered, her sobs coming back under control. There was blood between her teeth, frothy and hot from where her bottom lip had split. “He will get his.”

They don’t hang out at Boris’ anymore, for good reason. And they’re mostly safe at Theo’s anyway. Boris gave her father the wrong address just in case, and Mr Silver isn’t nearly as intimidating as Theo thinks he’s trying to be.

All this means is that they’re at Theo’s more often than they used to be, and they’re with Theo’s dad more often as well. And Theo hates it when Boris talks to her dad. She gets scared that he’s turning Boris against her, story-by-story, chipping away at their rapport a tad with every conversation, destroying the past and rebuilding it as a version where he’s the good guy and Theo was blindsided.

“Is just being friendly,” Boris shrugs every time Theo brings it up. “You are one who said we should stay here. You want me to disrespect him while living under his roof?” She snorts and shoves Theo almost hard enough to knock her off the bed. “Thought you did _not_ want me beaten.”

It’s a tasteless joke. Still, Theo takes a long drink of her beer and doesn’t think on it.

Boris sleeps in her bed more often than not, nowadays. Theo’s actually not sure how often Boris has been home in the last few weeks. She’s wears Theo’s clothes now, and spends most of her time not at school hanging at Theo’s house or at the abandoned playground down the street.

They watch old movies on Theo’s dad’s big flat screen TV, while her dad and Xandra scream at each other across the house. Boris really likes old movies, especially black-and-white ones, and, if Theo can get ahold of them, ones in foreign languages. More often than not they need subtitles to understand what’s going on, but sometimes Boris translates for her, which is way more fun.

Unfortunately, tonight they’re just watching _High Society_ over garlic bread from the frozen section and Theo’s dad’s beer.

 _“I’m such an unholy mess of a girl,”_ Grace Kelly says dramatically on screen.

“Xan, where the fuck are the home insurance papers?” Theo’s dad shouts from upstairs.

Xandra, sitting in the armchair with a glass of white wine and dutifully pretending to read a magazine when they can clearly see her peeking over the top to watch the movie, sighs and gets up. “They’re all in the filing cabinet, Larry!” She yells back, hand on the bannister.

Boris snorts quietly next to Theo and leans over, hand on Theo’s thigh, “Did not know they paid bills, eh, Potter?”

Theo bites her tongue to not laugh as Xandra stalks back to her armchair, but gives Boris a grin. Popchyk whines in Boris’ lap so she stuffs the garlic bread into her mouth in order to Pat his belly, instead of just removing her hand from Theo’s thigh.

They turn back to the movie. Theo does not lay her hand over Boris’, even though part of her wants to. And later that night, when they’ve gone up to Theo’s room and snorted some crushed up Vicodin, the house around them still and quiet with Xandra and Theo’s dad’s absence, Theo blames the drugs for Boris’s hands sliding up her thighs under the covers.

She doesn’t think of what it all might mean, just focuses on Boris’ mouth on the back of her neck.

And in the morning, she doesn’t think of it at all, because she honestly doesn’t remember it.

~

Boris went home today, after school. Promised to meet back at Theo’s. She was looking for a book she thought Theo would like, she wanted a certain t-shirt she was sure she left on her bedroom floor.

She comes back with her backpack stuffed to spilling with clothes, and the fakest smile she’s ever mustered plastered across her face, right below a shiny new bruise on her cheekbone.

“Old man was waiting for me,” she explains, staring at the leather bracelets around her wrists, toying with them and not looking at Theo. Theo reaches towards her face and Boris bats her hand away. “Is fine, Potter. He just wanted to know where I have been. Said he has been worried.”

“So worried that he _hit_ you?”

Boris grins wickedly, a layer of vacancy lying beneath it. “He has a tricky way of showing love.”

They smoke a joint and take off their shirts for a quick swim in the pool, and it’s just when Boris is using Theo as a ladder, effectively drowning her, squawking that Russian lullaby about the cats, that Theo’s father conveniently comes home. The back door slides open and Boris releases Theo completely, repatriating back into the pool, her mouth below the water.

Theo, half-drowned, unsubtle, and high, breaks through the surface, coughing chlorine water out of her lungs while shrieking, “You motherfucker! You shit of a human!”

“Language, Theo,” her father says casually, and she turns to look at him, slightly shocked he’s here this early in the evening. “You girls should probably get swimsuits. Someone might get the wrong impression.”

Theo refrains from pointing out that no one else lives on Desert End Road, and instead mutely nods, eyes locked on Boris, whose eyes have widened the way they do when her father comes home, cane already swinging.

“Anyway, put on something nice,” he says, giving his wrist watch a look, “we’re going out to dinner.”

“Why?” Theo inquires, confusedly. He hasn’t taken them to dinner since Christmas.

“It’s Xandra’s birthday.” He replies, shrugging. “Thought we should celebrate like a real family.”

Before Theo can ask if Boris is included in this _real family_ he’s talking about, he turns on his heel and walks back inside, sliding door standing ajar. They stay in the pool until they hear his bedroom door close.

“Are you okay?” Theo asks as they splash out of the pool, scooping up their jeans and t-shirts from the hot concrete, clutching them to their chests, and hurrying inside. Popchyk barks as they leave chlorinated wet footprints on the carpet.

“Why would I not be, Potter?” Boris replies in a voice that very clearly reads as _shut the fuck up about it._

“I don’t know,” Theo says as they race up the stairs, Popchyk hard on their heels. “You just seem spooked.”

She scoffs and says, “We are _high,_ remember?”

Theo closes her bedroom door and dumps her clothes on the floor. “So? He knows about that. It’s not a big deal.”

Boris pulls her shirt back on, big enough that it hits the middle of her thighs comfortably. “Do you own dresses, Potter? I cannot imagine you in one.” Theo doesn’t acknowledge the subject change as much as she wants to question Boris’ shadiness over why she got all spooked around Theo’s dad. Maybe it’s a general mistrust of older men, since her father is such a bad role model.

Either way, Theo just lets it go.

She throws her old school skirt at her. It’s too short nowadays, and is too small for her hips, but Boris is growing into that slim physique that means she can fit into a lot of small clothing, and with her knee-high boots the skirt will look longer than it is. Theo just puts her clothes back on and adds her old school blazer, still too big, because her mother said she’d grow into it.

Her father gives them approving looks when they appear at the bottom of the stairs, and then shepards them out to the car.

“Where’s Xandra?”

“We’re meeting her there.”

Xandra’s all dressed and slathered in more makeup than usual when they get to the restaurant on the strip, some four star steak house where every meal on the menu seems both overpriced and overcooked. Xandra and Theo’s dad flirt over wine and menus, and after they’ve ordered, Xandra turns her attention briefly onto Boris.

“Say, buddy, that’s one hell of a shiner you’ve got there. Was that there this morning?” Her tone is an awful lot more caring than it usually is. Theo decides not to read too much into it.

Boris gives her a tight smile that only Theo can recognise as fake, and says, “The side of your pool just came out of nowhere!” Then she opens her mouth wide as she drinks from the chilled water in her wine glass, a flake of ice landing on her tongue. She sets the glass back on the table and chews the flake with her lips slightly parted. Theo watches the movement of her jaw beneath the sun bleached skin, the bruise rolling with it.

Xandra says something about being lucky to not have lost a tooth, but Theo doesn’t listen. She’s too focused on watching Boris, like she’s high and Boris is the only thing clear in a blurry world.

The rest of the dinner is mostly uneventful, apart from the short toast Theo’s dad makes, calling them a _charming patchwork family,_ and this time very clearly including Boris in this assessment.

Then he orders Theo and Boris’s taxi, says he’s “taking Xandra out to see the sights” as if he were the Las Vegas native here. He takes Boris aside briefly while Xandra searches through her purse for spare change for the taxi fare. It’s only back at the house, Popchyk barking to be let out and Boris shedding Theo’s skirt onto the living room floor, that Theo asks about what he said.

Boris sucks in her cheeks, clearly deep in thought about it. “I think,” she begins, slowly, and picks up a discarded carton of cigarettes from the coffee table, lighting it with the lighter also sitting on the table, and inhaling deeply. “I _think_ your dad wants to sleep with me.”

“What?” Theo says, immediately, aghast, her cheeks red with the idea of it. Her stomach drops in the way it usually does right before she throws up.

“I do not know,” Boris shrugs, her breath puffing our smoke. It’s a revoltingly intoxicating smell. “Is just feeling I get sometimes. He ask me strange questions. He say, _Boris what does your father do for money? Boris, is your father rich man? Does he love you very much? Would you like to stay here properly?”_

Theo just stares as Boris smokes and begins to pace. She’s never seen Boris like this, all wired up and fidgety.

“And he looks at me like- _like-“_ she snaps her fingers, face scrunching as she tries to bring a word to mind, and Theo would usually help but right now she can’t. “Like I am _steak_ and he is hungry. Like before, in pool. He just keeps _looking_ at me.”

“Boris, that’s disgusting,” Theo eventually says, voice strangled.

“Yes,” Boris allows, head nodding, “but mostly - mostly _unnerving.”_ She finally looks at Theo and must see the stricken way she’s looking at her because her expression turns to one of guilt and fear. “You know I would _never-“_

“Boris,” Theo says, and strides over, feeling much too sober to be having this conversation. Then again, on a few beers and a bump of Vicodin they’d be laughing uproariously at the notion of Theo’s dad wanting to sleep with Boris. Not the right tone, really. “I would rather _kill_ him than let him touch you like that. I’d kill anyone who tried that.”

 _I’d kill for you,_ she doesn’t say, because that seems a step too far, but it’s what she wants to say. It’s what she means.

For a second, Boris just stares at her with an unreadable expression on her face. It’s so serious. They’ve never been this serious, except besides when Theo told her that it was her fault that her mother had died.

Then Boris takes a last drag of the smouldering cigarette and grins, kissing Theo’s cheek. “So _serious,_ Potter.”

~

Theo looks out for it, though. She watches out for the looks Boris talked about, the “hungry” ones. And she tries not to be away from Boris at home for any extended period of time, becoming a kind of tiny bodyguard, always by her side.

Boris doesn’t say anything about it. She just looks at Theo and says, “Xandra moved her stash.”

The conversation haunts Theo more than it should. She wakes in a cold sweat, the kind usually reserved for dreams about the Met and Welty, bloody gash in his head. Half-awake and panting in fear, she almost remembers flashes of Boris when Theo had been drunk or high enough to think it was okay to touch her the way only a boy should, sick with the thought that her father of all people would consider, much less _imply,_ that he wanted to touch her like that.

She does not tell Boris about this. Boris would laugh and wave it away.

Either way, Theo begins to feel unsafe whenever her father is around. She starts dragging Boris with her to the playground more and more often, memorising her father’s schedule especially to avoid him and his house that feels emptier and emptier the more she steps inside.

Xandra begins to complain loudly about her stuff going missing - her jewellery, her tip money, and such - so Theo and Boris quietly close the front door on their way out.

~

It gets worse because Boris meets a boy, some _white trash_ from his civics class, as Hadley from English calls him. Theo never actually catches his name, but Boris calls him Kotku, and whenever he’s around, Theo feels severely uncomfortable.

Suddenly, he’s Boris’ boyfriend and she spends all her time with him. (“He is _eighteen,_ Potter,” Boris moons once, eating stale pretzels out of a ziploc bag from her backpack. “A real man, eh?”) Kotku gets into fights and Boris patches him up in Theo’s kitchen; Kotku gets them drugs - pills, dope, acid - and then they spend the high making out on Theo’s couch.

More often than not, though, Boris and Kotku hang out at Kotku’s house, without Theo. Theo ends up spending more time alone in a house she doesn’t trust.

A couple of times, Kotku gets held back for detention, so Boris comes to hang out at Theo’s without her too-cool boyfriend, and they get high by the pool. Theo sulks with her feet in the water and asks, bitterly, “Does he fuck you?”

Boris coughs. Theo watches her reflection. She doesn’t look embarrassed, just surprised at the question. “Yes. A couple times now.”

Theo just frowns deeper and takes the joint from between Boris’ fingers. She hopes Boris can’t read the look on her face, but she really can’t help her expressional candor.

“You know I am not virgin before him, yes, Potter?” Boris says, a laugh in her voice, and she knocks their shoulders together.

“Huh?” Her cheeks heat, and part of her wonders if Boris is talking about the many times she can’t quite remember when they’ve been high out of their minds, and Boris let Theo touch her.

“That boy in New Guinea?” She’d told that story a long time ago, near when they met, boasting that she was cool, she’d had sex, you know?

“Oh.” Theo nods, tries to not feel so silly to think Boris could be talking about her. What they did wasn’t sex. It was just messing around. And if they didn’t talk about it, it didn’t exist. “Him.”

“Not jealous, are you?” She bumps Theo’s shoulder again, and then takes back the joint, taking a long drag.

Theo laughs nervously and rolls her eyes for show. _“No,_ no way.” She’s not jealous of Kotku or the boy in New Guinea, because she’s not a dyke and she doesn’t get jealous about her best friends sex life.

“Good.” They smoke the rest of the joint. They don’t swim. Not when the threat of Theo’s father returning early looms. “He has other girlfriend, you know? Older girl, lives out of state. He probably does not love me as much as he says he does. But, that is life. We take the love we can get, eh?”

Theo turns to look at her full in the face. She’s leaning so far forward her curls are hanging in her face. “He’s cheating on you?”

Boris just shrugs, “More like he is cheating on _her.”_

“So, why stay with him?” Theo questions, curiously. Every new thing she learns about Kotku makes her doubt his intentions towards Boris, even if that isn’t her business.

“I love him,” Boris replies, as if this is obvious, andchews her bottom lip. The thing is, Theo’s not too sure either of them know what real love is. Their lives are too ducked up, always have been, to get love from the people hurting them, so their views on love must be skewed mustn’t they? And that must be why Boris thinks what she and Kotku have is love? Right? Theo doesn’t say that. “And we make sense.”

“In what way?”

“Reason I am in civics class. I am _‘no good kid’._ Same as him.” She sighs, and lies back on the concrete, her curls fanned out underneath her head. Theo joins her. “We fit. So I stay.”

It reminds Theo of the way her mother would speak of her father. _It’s easier to stay, Theo, better for our family. And we had a reason to be together in the first place, we had a reason to stay then, so why not now?_

Theo’s always wanted something better than _a reason_ to be with someone. She’s wanted an overwhelming feeling that without them she’d drown. To simply fit with someone, for it to just be easier to not cause a fuss, that seemed like worst case scenario.

_We fit. So I stay._

~

Theo’s dad makes her call Mr. Bracegirdle, his slaps still stinging in her cheeks. When she fails to get the money, he wails so loudly it terrifies her, and she fears he’ll hit her again, maybe even beat her the way Boris’ father beats her, and so she runs, and she doesn’t stop until she reaches the playground where Boris is already waiting for her.

When she and Boris return, the car is in the driveway, and the lights are off in the house, the whole place dead silent. The living room is still a mess from where her father had swept the shelf above the TV clean in his anger, and Popchyk is whining at the back door, so they let him out.

They lie in Theo’s bed for a long time, fully clothed, staring at the ceiling as it shifts in colour, at the mercy of the acid they dropped at the playground. Theo doesn’t even realise she’s drifting off, only registers her body becoming heavy, and long periods of blackness when her eyes close. She thinks she’s dying, which she accepts pretty easily.

“Silly Potter,” Boris mumbles and leans over her to kiss her cheeks where they’re bruised and takes off her glasses, setting them on the bedside table. “You will not die of something so silly.”

Theo nods, and curls fully into Boris’ hold.

~

When she wakes again, she is being shaken violently awake. It’s still dark outside, she notices, and the room is hazy as it slowly fills with smoke. Boris is not there.

Xandra shakes her again, “Get the fuck up.” She hisses, hauling Theo out of bed.

“What’s going on?” She coughs, picking up her glasses off the bedside table, only to be immediately yanked out of the room by her wrist, and down the stairs. That’s when she sees the flames.

“The fucking house is on fire you moron!” Xandra shouts as she carefully evades the fire and pushes Theo out the front door. Theo turns once her bare feet hit the asphalt. Flames live at the shattered downstairs windows, and the shadow of fire begins to appear in the upstairs ones.

She turns and her father and Boris, holding Popchyk tightly to her chest, are standing mutely side by side, wearing twin expressions of horror on their faces.

“What-?” Theo splutters out, and Boris turns to look at her, relief crashing like waves over her face. She sets Popchyk down on the road and bundles Theo into her arms.

“I wake and go downstairs for water, only to find downstairs is on fire. So I grab Popchyk, wake Xandra and I come outside.” She pulls back and surveys Theo for injuries. “Thought you might _die.”_

“Why didn’t you wake me?” She demands in return, hit with disbelief that Boris would wake Xandra first.

“Was panicked. Got the adults first,” she says as if this fact is a given. Then she cups Theo’s face and gives her a relieved smile. “But Xandra got you.”

Theo nods, looking back at the house, Boris hands dropping from her face. “Yeah, she did-“

“Have you called the fire department?” Xandra asks, marching up to Theo’s dad.

“They’re on their way.” Her father turns to look at her and Boris. “Hope there’s nothing valuable in that room of yours.”

It’s like Theo’s brain switches off. _The Goldfinch._ Fuck. It’s still taped to her headboard. She can already see flames in her room through the window, but it’ll be worth the burns if she can rescue it.

Boris notices the look on her face and recognition floods her features, becoming fear very quickly, and she holds her hands out to Theo, almost to try and stop her. “Potter, don’t-“

Theo’s already sprinting back up the drive and through the front door. Boris catches up to her in the entryway, clear of fire at this moment. She grabs Theo by the shoulders. “Are you _crazy?”_ She coughs.

“Boris, you don’t understand!” Theo yells, trying to wiggle her way from her friend’s grip, seeing that the stairs are on fire and fully ready to risk it. “There’s something-“

“Potter, you moron!” Boris bellows, shaking her a little. Her eyes are wide and fearful. “It is not there!”

“What?”

“Your painting, your bird! It is not there!” There’s a crack above them, and the plastered ceiling of the entryway cracks and splinters in a shower of sparks and large splinters of wood. Boris cries out in a shout of pain Theo recognises far too well as a large splinter of wood falls directly on her right shoulder, sending her to the floor with a sickening crack.

Theo, pushed away by the jolt of Boris being hit, loses her glasses in the flames steadily licking at the carpet by their feet. Without thinking, she reaches in to grab them, barely feeling the flames lick at her skin.

With the hand not holding her glasses, she grabs Boris’ uninjured shoulder and hauls her out of the house and back out onto the road. Her father and Xandra aren’t even looking at them.

“What do you mean the painting isn’t there,” she asks, looking up miserably at the house.

“You are blackout drunk, Potter. You unwrapped it and showed me. I was selfish, I wanted it, not to sell, just wanted it.” She turns and looks at Boris, who is crying guiltily as she surveys her right arm which she’s unable to move. “I stole it. It’s in my locker at school. You run into burning house to rescue my civics textbook. You could have been killed, you know this?”

“You took it?” Theo asks, aghast.

“I am _sorry.”_ Her tone agrees. She sounds so fucking sorry. She’s never sounded like that in all the time Theo’s known her, not even when she was screaming in Ukranian for her father to stop, please stop. “I know this is unforgivable.”

“Boris,” Theo just leans forward and pulls her into her lap, adrenaline running out, becoming exhaustion. It’s almost relieving that she doesn’t have to go and rip it off her headboard.

Boris wraps her good arm around Theo’s shoulders and sobs into her neck, just saying, “I am sorry, I am _so_ sorry,” as Popchyk barks and runs circles around them.

They stay wrapped up in each other’s arms until the fire trucks arrive, along with two ambulances who immediately scoop Theo and Boris up and look them over.

“Second degree burns,” says the paramedic checking Theo’s hands. “What did you do?”

“Dropped my glasses.” Her hands have gone bright red and are painful to the touch. “It was stupid, I didn’t even think, just grabbed them out of the fire.”

Boris has a dislocated shoulder and a broken collarbone, which basically means her right arm in useless. They set her collarbone and pop her shoulder back into place in the ambulance, then put her arm in a sling and set shock blankets over both their shoulders. Theo’s burns need to be dealt with at a hospital, so Boris scoops up Popchyk with one hand and climbs back inside, directing them to go.

“Won’t your parents mind?” The paramedic caring for them, casting a dubious look at Xandra and Theo’s dad, conversing quietly with one of the firefighters. The blaze is almost under control, though Theo heard them say it’s not going to be salvageable. Theo heard them say a lot of other things, too. Bad things.

“They’ve got enough to deal with.” Theo mumbles, the shock setting in. The ambulance takes off, and Boris sits pale and wan looking to her left. “Hey.”

“What?” Boris replies, taking Theo’s elbow in her left hand, instead of just holding her hand.

“We need to run.” Theo tells her, seriously.

“What?” She repeats, this time confused.

“I heard my dad and Xandra talking to one of the firefighters. They said the fire was set deliberately, and my dad said it was probably you.”

Boris’ eyes grow large and she starts to shake her head, saying, “You know I would _never-_ I would _die_ before I-“

“No, no, Boris, he’s trying to frame you!” Theo says, and casts a look at the paramedic still in the back with them. She’s not paying attention to them. “I’ll bet they’re pinning Xandra’s missing jewellery on you too. I’ll bet he planted them at your house.”

Boris shivers.

“That’s why he asked about your dad - if he had money, if he loved you,” Theo says as she realises it. It might be the residual drugs, or maybe it’s just that fucking shocking that her father would pin something like this on her friend. “He’s going to sue you and your dad and try to send you to jail.”

“Did he set fire?” Boris asks, voice trembling slightly.

“Probably.” Her mind is racing. “Thinking about it, he probably wants the insurance money to settle his debts. Getting money from your father too would help. I can’t believe him.”

Theo remembers not to touch her with her hands, and so just touches her forehead to Boris’. Boris leans into the touch. She doesn’t look scared, but she’s shaking.

“I’ll fix this, okay?” Theo whispers. “We’ll get patched up at the hospital, we’ll go to yours grab what we need, grab the painting from your locker, and then we’ll run.”

“Run _where?”_ Boris whispers back, using her good hand to grab Theo’s elbow, squeezing it in lieu of squeezing her hand.

“Anywhere.” She promises, and with Boris the possibilities are endless, and no plan is dumb. “New York. I know people we can stay with there.”

Boris purses her lips and shakes her head, “I do not-“

Theo kisses her. She doesn’t really have a reason. She just does it, and Boris, surprisingly, rips her hand from Theo’s elbow and uses it to cup her face, kissing back with all the desperation and hope Theo is feeling. When she pulls away from it, she touches her forehead to Boris’ again and whispers, “I’ll make this _right.”_

“You are not angry about your bird?” Boris asks, eyes wide.

“If you hadn’t stolen it,” Theo says, “it would be burned to a crisp, right now. You saved it. You saved _me.”_

  
  
  


_come to find out_

_i’m a can on a string; you’re on the end_

_we found our way out of a suicide pact of our family and friends_

_and in the background_

_i’ll be waiting_

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. Please consider leaving me a comment, I love reading them. Hmu on Tumblr @nose-coffee for memes and screams into the void about tgf. Once again, thanks :)


End file.
